Refusing Silverware
by Harbinger Loki
Summary: Darcy Lewis makes a very difficult decision and runs from a life she doesn't feel is right for her, ever. In fact, she's fairly sure now, as Max Black, that she is dead inside. So, when New York is attacked, and the Avengers are cleaning up with Loki Laufeyson helping as punishment, one Bronx waitress ends up with an option. Curse you, Caroline Channing and Trickster God Galore!
1. Achievement 1:Coulson & Frosted Diabetes

Refusing Silverware

Achievement 1: Coulson and Frosted Diabetes

"_Tell me what to do about you_

_I already know I can see in your eyes _

_When you're selling the truth _

_'Cause it's been a long time coming _

_So where you running to?_

_Tell me what to do about you  
You got your way of speaking_

_Even the air you're breathing _

_You could be anything _

_But you don't know what to believe in _

_You got the world before you"_

_-Demi Lovato 'What To Do'_

In the history of dumbest actions anyone had ever taken in the world such as the one time Hitler decided to repeat Napoleon's actions, and Napoleon repeated invading Russia twice, Darcy Lewis, brunette goddess of tasers -self-proclaimed, of course- coffee-enthusiast, natural walking wonder of the world, and Jane Foster's personal helping minion during the Thor crisis, believed strongly that she was the walking epitome of looking gift horses in the mouth and promptly running in the opposite direction.

Maybe she received it from her mother's strong repulsion of ever being handed anything that she felt she had not earned or things being given because she seemed pitiable, or perhaps her father's wish for Darcy to never feel like she couldn't do better on her own as if Darcy deserved the best no matter what as long as she put her heart into whatever she chose to do. Either way, Darcy had a history of seeing things as too good to be true, or with reasons unknown to her behind them, and thus, refused a lot of things altogether, even if when those things might be opportunities that she needed. (Such as when the star quarterback in her freshman year of high school had asked her to the senior prom and she said no. Though to her regrets later on, she found out that they had tricked another girl, Maria Naples, who sat in the back of the class, hid behind long hair and braces, got straight as, and thoroughly embarrassed enough to miss her own graduation that year.)

She had honestly been trying her best to get away from turning down a good thing, eventually growing into the woman she was at the current moment. (It was mostly on the precipice when she was staring down the "Intern wanted for 6 College Credits!" that Darcy took her opportunity to go against the grain of her normal routine of not taking opportunities that seemed almost surreal. 'Hey, everyone had to start somewhere,' she reasoned.)

When scared though, Darcy knew she would revert back, despite any strong urge to stay the new girl who would seize the day, opposed to the socially-awkward non-filtered mess that thought silver-plated dishes were catch-22s waiting to happen. Perhaps that's why she was frightened more and more as her internship ended and she was getting closer to her graduation date in December.

Darcy hadn't been sure what she should be afraid of honestly, just that she was. Her hand had shook when she wrote out the addresses and signed each of her graduation invitations (all five of them), even making sure to send Thor one through Jane and Erik's base of operations in Puento Aguilo.

She should not have been too surprised when she got three generic cards, the ones no one really puts any effort into finding, with written messages that confirmed she would not have anyone in the early graduation ceremony's audience. All of them with fevered excuses that Darcy could only roll her eyes at. (After the third card, an apology in Jane's tiny and barely eligible scrawl, Darcy had gone out and gotten so pissed drunk that she was sure that she had come home in a very not-hers outfit, in fact when she woke up from whatever wasted one night stand she had taken along for a drunken ride, she had been wearing lingerie out of her price range for who could own green lace lingerie with golden under-lacing with a designer tag that would have sold alone for up to thousands.)

Darcy Lewis shrugged it off after that night, forgoing the misfortune of friends that couldn't come, and parents that

were unable to leave her baby sister alone nor the time to take off work. (She understood after all that it was more the economy and all that generic jazz that they had been spouting off the news networks for the past few years. ) She chose to work hard in her last semester instead, being simple proud enough of her own work to walk for her own self.

So when it came to the tiny ceremony with only four other people getting their diplomas, Darcy was surprised to see one Agent Coulson in the audience of twelve people. There was no way she would have missed him even with a hundred other people in the crowd though. He was too impeccably dressed and his manner was all too much business to have him be anything but amongst a crowd of twelve family members for the other graduates. The man, himself, was steel, unbending and straight, despite the pressure of people around him.

She almost had her doubts that the SHIELD agent was there for her. (Maybe the early-education teacher, paramedic, nurse, or the lumberjack chef that she had briefly dated in her freshman year when they both took Early Civ. was his main priorities.) She had almost convinced herself that the agent was not there for her when she had her name called and walked over to the small podium where the dean stood. When she shook the dean's hand, taking a moment to glance out to the crowd, she saw the agent smiling his enigmatic smile and clapping lightly. Her lips opened and she spoke accidently into the microphone on the dean's lapel as he went to pose with her for a picture.

"Oh, shit." She thought she hadn't said the words out loud but the loud chortle from the crowd made her feel shame at not being able to close her mouth at the most appropriate time to do so. Agent Coulson even had the balls to smirk at her as her cheeks became enflamed. There was no mistaking now just how much in the rabbit hole Darcy Lewis was in. They hadn't sent some second-rate suit to come and see her graduation. They had sent Coulson, who as far as she knew it, was one of the agents that seemed to take everything in stride with his scary smile, that only made Darcy feel squeamish at perhaps what that smile had seen.

Then again, Darcy had a very active imagination, but as far as SHIELD was concerned with her, her rules included anything could happen with them. (They had stolen her very brand new iPod after all and all of Jane's research.) As soon as she sat down from walking to the dean and getting her certificate, the taser-toting brunette set herself to thinking on just why they would send Coulson to her measly ceremony. She knew better than to think he was there just for the crappy cake they served at the pseudo-party. She definitely hoped that he hadn't seen the miscellaneous amount of Agent Coulson pictures photo-shopped on different celebrities that she had put on the web a month ago. Most of all, she really hoped that Coulson wasn't going to kill her for knowing too much. (She was always the wrong person at the wrong time that said the wrong thing, something Jane had always rolled her eyes at as if Darcy didn't understand cosmic rules of shutting her mouth when it was right to do so instead of letting her mind override her common sense as it oft wanted to do and did in earnest.)

When the last words of the graduation had resounded from the dean's mic, Darcy's blue eyes darted to each of the exits, intent on escape, forgetting the frosted diabetes awaiting her in the small reception area that she had earlier been all too happy to get at, and almost was daydreaming about. However, she had paused for too long it seemed and when her eyes returned to in front of her; there was Agent Coulson's blank smile right in front of her face, watching her reaction. She blinked at him owlishly for a moment before her mouth opened with her common sense being overridden as usual.

"Hey! Uh, no gods here today...or aliens, or other things! Totes!" She knew that somewhere, someone thought she was an elegant creature, like a gazelle in the African savannah of what her life was, at the words she spoke were so amazing. They, not really existing, were also probably lunatics who ate ice cream for every meal, didn't gain any weight, and could drink four large red bulls and a triple bypass burger without death as a consequence. There were also not gods of any sort because she just realized she was describing the Asgardians down to a fault, though she almost couldn't picture Sif really eating ice cream at every meal. Despite that Darcy spoke in a language that resembled English purple written, Coulson's raised blonde eyebrow was her only answering reply for a few moments, mostly nerve-wracking, filled with a background of people leaving the room on some sort of cue it seemed. (Maybe her graduation was a SHIELD flash mob getting ready to dance to LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem.)

"Miss Lewis, I believe you have the wrong idea for why I am here." Coulson smiled to what Darcy must have guessed was the smile before he would take her out to the parking lot and stash her body in a ditch for knowing too much. The agent gestured to the chair, waiting for her to notice. "Please take a seat."

:3 Please review. This will also be on under the same title in the Thor and 2 Broke Girls sections. It is a basic cross over.

So...Thoughts?


	2. Achievement 2: Death Rattles

Refusing Silverware

Chapter 2: Death Rattles

She went to California first in her old car that her father had gotten her. Sold everything she owned, even the ipod she treasured. Knowing SHIELD and any government type from movies, they could have put a tracker on anything she owned. It seemed truly like she was running, because well….maybe she was. With her hands shaking as she handed over even her grandmother's treasured necklace that funded her fairly well, Darcy Lewis ended up staring at the pawn broker that was paying. Was this to be her life? Was she going to have to look over her shoulder every few moments in case of SHIELD being behind her the entire way?

'No. I'll be one step ahead,' She decided, blue eyes brimming in determination and the tears of loss as she left the pawn store and all of her valuables. Her taser was even back there. For her clothes, she went to the nearest thrift store, changed into different clothes, and left the store with her credit cards and identification in her old wallet. (Not to mention the new black worn boots she had bought. They were comfortable as if she was walking on her mattress…when she had one.) She needed to find a bridge of some sort, toss it over, and find someone who could make new identification. Her money, was in the new, well, old beat up leather wallet she had found for three dollars that she had put in her bra for safe keeping. (Not that anyone would see it over the intense amount of cleavage her green and brown shirt was showing with its deep v-neck.)

If there was something Darcy was certain of, it was that she knew how to hide. She watched all the movies, read the Michael Crichton books, and even kept notes about how kings and past monarchs had hid amongst their people as ploys. First though, she needed to leave LA, make it seem like she made a run for Canada or Mexico. Walking up to the interstate shoulder leading out of LA from the bottom of a hill, climbing like she had done this for a living, Darcy took a page out of the 1960s, pulled her thumb out and smiled widely. Inwardly, she was shaking, but Darcy Lewis, if anything was determined, beating her fears with the logic of, 'DO YOU WANT TO BE STUCK UNDER THE THUMB OF THE GOVERNMENT?' To which her answer was immediately, "No. Hell no. And Nope."

She would admit to herself, she was afraid of this new her, but right now, she tucked fear for herself in a small box and told it to go shove off the nearest cliff because she knew it was now or never when it came to SHIELD. They didn't let people like her who knew too much go. They would find her, but until then, she was going to be someone who wasn't going to be found at all and that meant having to jump into a stranger's car and hope for the best.

"Well, Bourne Supremacy, let's make this a go." With her bottom lip twitching, Darcy Lewis took a heavy breath, held it in and closed her eyes tightly as a small little green volkeswagon bug that looked as if it could have drove itself out of the magazine from a 1970s catalogue, pulled up to the side of the road that she was on. Blinking widely in surprise, the brunette leaned over to the window to peer in at the driver.

"Where you headin' to, stranger?" The driver was clean cut, shaved face that appealed directly to Darcy's southern region, though she insisted to herself it was only because his voice had that deep tenor that was far too sinful for her to ever take him into a church. Smirking at her, he reached over to the passenger window with biceps that stretched the green t-shirt he was wearing. Ever so observant, the girl also noted his hands were rather large and wondered if he matched the old adage of hand size equaling man size.

"I'm going to Canada. How far you making your way to?" She was being sure to be discreet. Who knew if SHIELD would find this one random chode in the billions of other people and question him about all of her travels. She noted real fast that he looked up to her with dreamy grey eyes. Darcy felt the inner monologue of her girl parts screaming at her to totally bone him. The other part of her, which was quickly trying to override her organ's desires, was screaming no.

Darcy had to agree with her other part. What if he had herpes? Honestly, at this point in her life, on the run with SHIELD soon to be at her back, the newly graduated intern knew her luck would not pan out until she hit someplace she could hide in. The driver smirked at her with lips far too nice to be on a guy. She quickly decided he could be an advertisement sent from God to remind her to get Calvin Klein jeans or go raiding the GAP later on whenever she landed where she needed to.

"Going up to Truckee." In her mind's eye, she thought of where exactly Truckee was, before mentally shrugging. There was a book of maps at the bottom of the front passenger seat. He didn't look like he had a lot and well, Darcy knew she was taking what she was wearing on herself and that was about it. She took a moment to think. This was it. She was taking the biggest plunge in her life. She had no taser, didn't know how to hold a gun, and well, at this moment, all she really had was her wits and fist. Nothing in her gut was warning her off about this other than what she was going to put up to the roiling of nausea from not really eating much on the drive over.

"Sounds good. I like powdered donuts though, not that chocolate crap." She glanced up at the sky for a moment, taking in a heavy breath. If there was any chance of anyone stopping her from potentially making a mistake, she deemed that right damn now was probably the best time for her, maybe for them both, whoever Hottie Mclimbs was to be smote from the skies.

She rectified herself. She would have to get his name soon, unless his real name was Hottie McLimbs. Either way of looking at it, there was no smiting happening within the few moments that she had made her decision on either her or the driver who was currently moving the atlas out of the way for her feet to be comfortable in the small vehicle.

"Hop in, sister and I'm old school on my donuts. I prefer the gem ones." With a smirk, that was far too sexy to be innocent, and a slide of her body onto the old tan leather seat of the passenger side of the bug, Darcy knew she was in something, either sexy or strangely or perhaps a bit of both.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLL

AN: I've written more but it will be for the next chapter. Just about to get on a plane to go back to my room that I'm renting and work. Sorry for the small bit! Please read and review!


	3. Achievement 3: Color Me Surprised

Refusing Silverware

Chapter 3: Color Me Surprised

LLLLL

Author's Note :

Holy Whack-a-moley. I did not expect so many people to actually want to watch this as much as there are. You all astonish and amaze me with your patience. I'm sorry that third chapter took forever for me to update. I get side-tracked a lot of the time and Darcy comes and goes when she wants to so I jump from project to project. I will try to get things up in a more timely manner because you guys are the literal best for waiting for so long for this next part.

Also, if I post this while drunk, I am so sorry.

LLLLL

Drowsy from the constant hum of the rumbling engine and the warmth of the actual heaters blasting through the edge of the cold, Darcy Lewis knew she was in a predicament when neither of those things were present. Probably why she had woken earlier than she thought. In fact, she shivered as she opened her eyes slowly to get her bearings. She wasn't on the comfy leather cushion from earlier. With a turn of her eyes, she quickly saw she was on ground, pressed down in the dirt and rocks, including one that was digging into her right leg. From the stiffness of her body, she knew she could guess that she had been on the ground for an hour and that there was probably a bruise there. According to her leg, the bruise was the size of Oklahoma but she and her leg didn't major in geography.

It took a moment later before the ex-intern could voice any questions. Her mouth was dry and looking at the ground, she had a drool puddle as big as her fist. Secretly, she hoped that Hottie McLimbs hadn't seen it, then again, speaking of McLimbs where was he?

"Hey! Where am I?" Rough with a hacking cough, Darcy started trying to sit up when she found that her hands were bound and she was on the ground with a rock digging into her legs. 'Well, that sums up my life right there,' the college graduate thought before hearing the shuffle of cowboy boots that stopped to settle in the ground in front of her. Blue eyes darted upwards in wide surprise as she took in the long legs of the man she had grabbed a ride from. Well, there's the Lone Ranger she was looking for, though she certainly did not like the look in his brown eyes that looked down on her. (She hated that look. Her high school crush had given it to her after he had pushed her down to the ground and kicked her in a drunken haze as she puked on his boots.)

"Shut up." His tone brook no argument but Darcy Lewis, if anything, did not listen to authority well. There was more than one time when her parents had told her as a child that her mouth would get her in trouble and her sass would end up with a slap on the face, but that was before they had her little sister who took all the heat from Darcy's troubling flaws almost immediately. (Someday, if she lived through this part of her life, which was becoming smaller by the second, Darcy would send her a thank you card, anonomously of course.)

Darcy's mind swiftly went into a sense of overload, floating past the designation of finding a way out of the bindings she was in and making a clean getaway as fast as possible to "Where the hell is my tazer? Oh my numerous gods, I'm going to die." She couldn't move that well, if that well meant not able to, but hey, she wasn't keeping a literal interpetation here in her crisis.

McLimbs moved away from her towards what looked to be a large fire pit, ash and charred bits of a person, whom she might soon be joining and didn't want to be joining, seemed to peek out of the remains. There were logs ontop of the remains along with newspapers. Great. She was going to be burned to death next to Hagar the Horrible complaining about his wife and Garfield stealing yet another tub of lasagna.

That was rather an unclassy way to die honestly, she decided. Who would want to be killed next to the remains of the LA Times? Especially the comic section? If she was going to be burned to death, he could at least use the business and economy section. It could be a statement on how screwed up the world is, something she could use to define her death, not Beetle Bailey and his men of the world's worst army unit in the world.

For some reason, bravado seemed to be her best choice for this outlet, not that she had many other options. She could sit there and watch him cook up a fire, bringing it to a full blaze quietly or sobbing like a high school prom queen runner up in all her prima donna glory with wet mascara running down her face like a fountain and ruining her dress or she could do something about it.

At that moment, Darcy knew she would not be a stupid chick from all of those action films she had seen. She would not be Jane after Thor left. She would not be Mary-Jane Parker crying because she needed someone to save her. She would be Wonder Woman. She would be David to Goliath. She would be Darcy-Who-Tasered-A-Goddamn-Norse-God-Lewis and there was nothing any one could damn well do about it.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! I tasered a god just to let you know!" Indignant over the newspaper balled up with kindling, Darcy projected her anger as much as she could. He stopped his attempts at drawing the flames out of the few sparks he had gotten started. The look in his eyes were nothing short of his intentions to murder her in cold blood. The length between them decreased rapidly as he easily stepped over to her with those long, long pretty-boy legs she had been thinking indecent thoughts about only a few hours before.

"I said shut up." He had raised her easily up by her shirt, pulling up on shirt she had paid only a few dollars for at the thrift store. His eyes narrowed and Darcy Lewis had a feeling she was under the scrutiny of an eagle about to take out his prey before he sighed and tossed her back from him, releasing her to gravity, which honestly, was a harsh mistress as the single ex-intern landed awkwardly on her back.

Despite crying out in a twinge of pain, Darcy knew she was in trouble as soon as she was able to sit up right and saw the silver knife that was probably sharper than it looked as Legman wiped it off his jeans, tilting his brunette covered head to the side as if she was a quantum physics problem to figure out without a calculator at his aid.

"G-Get that knife away from me!" He shrugged at her with a cruel laugh echoing the sound between them, creating a chasm as he turned around and returned his attentions back to the bone and kindling that looked as if it was lagging behind the murderer's time table. She figured that getting a fire going was somewhere between tea-time and dinner, then again she used to be a college student who tended to eat ramen, pop tarts, and graham crackers when she felt the culinary inclination hit her so she wouldn't really be able to tell if tea time was before or after dinner. In this case, she could suppose tea time was after roasting the college chick.

"Scream all you like, sweetie-pie. Ain't no one gonna hear you." He sneered, working on the fire with a flint rock and no matches. Well, that was one way to let her know that she could have enough time to try her best to get out of these ropes. If there was one thing Darcy Lewis always kept on hand, it was movies and the plots that came with them. Her pop culture knowledge was almost infinite, though she thought IMDB could easily one-up her most days still.

That was when it hit her. She had landed on her back and could sit up and with that came the freedom to try and slide her hands under her bum, the lovely derriere she had whispered lovingly in every pair of jeans she ever owned, to under her ankles, like many leading ladies who were smart enough to get out of rope ties had been in her movie data base.

'Where's a time lord when I need one? Or a god, I can take a Norse god falling on me right now, Heimdall!' Unlike other heroes that seemed to have little trouble with doing what she was attempting, Darcy was trying to be quiet enough with her moving to not cause attention to herself, but was having trouble with her legs. One foot was asleep and wasn't that just a peachy bitch for once in her life? If Darcy had a nickel for how many times her bad luck had been showing in the last few weeks, she could only get enough for maybe a plane ticket, but it was still a plane ticket and not on the cold hard ground. A sense of despair ran its course down her body in ice before her blue eyes caught sight of the LA Times comic pages. Oh, hell no.

"I'm gonna roast you with chestnuts. I got some good ones down in LA. Now, shut up. I gotta build this fire." Her fire was stocked and starting to blaze in more ways than one. Her ropes slid from under her heels to the front of her feet before releasing from the strain of being put behind her. It took her only moments to find the right rock that looked like it was hefty enough to carry the strength she needed to escape.

She raised her hands with the rock in her hold before closing her eyes as tightly as possible and taking the biggest swing of her life. The feel of hitting such a solid object frightened her that she dropped the rock into the fire. Murdererman hit the ground in front of the ashes, barely inches from the fire he had been bringing to fullness. The man was out cold and bleeding to which Darcy could thank her lucky stars.

Okay, they weren't that lucky but at the moment she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Truthfully, she might but right now was not the moment to do that in. Darcy's blue eyes found the knife he had set aside while working on the flames in front of her. She worked quickly, hardly taking notice of just how much blood her potential killer was losing steadily.

Finally, it came down to the wire on what in all of tarnation she should do with him. She couldn't tie him up that well and honestly, the guy had killed another woman by the looks of the bones in the pit before it was lit up in the dusk. She bit her bottom lip slowly, thinking ahead of what she should do. She could take his car and drop it somewhere if he came looking for it. preferably somewhere he wouldn't find it, but what about his health?

She took a shaky warble of air between her pink lips. Darcy was a good girl who thought of others. That was how her mother and father raised her. She was safe and cautious. She was not rambunctious and unthinking like she was of late. (Oh, how her mother would turn in her grave if she knew what Darcy Lewis was contemplating.)

Technically, she was supposed to be evading the cops. If she was seen at a hospital, Darcy knew Coulson would hop on it faster than a new suit. He seemed like he never ran out of suits. What if he tore one off if there was a stain on it and there was a suit under it anyway? She shook her head firmly. She had better things to think about. If she wanted to save her hide, she knew that she had to leave without him.

"Just for whoever asks, you were freaking me out." Even to Darcy, who had finally used the knife to finish cutting the ropes that bound her, it sounded like a paltry excuse to all the lessons of life she had been taught early on in her life. She didn't move him except to rummage in his pockets for the keys to volkeswagon and any money he had on him. Grimacing at the idea that she might be taking from a dead man, Darcy left him there, trying her hardest to let go of her revulsion. She needed to look at everything in the car and make sure she didn't carry any of his murdering tools.

"I mean, put in a nice word for me if you died. I forgot to ask Thor if there was an afterlife, him being a god and all….." She took one last look after having gone through the trunk of the car and the interior for anything that could possibly indicate murdersome uses at his body lying there next to the fire before turning back into the driver's seat and pulling out the map.

"Okay, Darcy, you've been through worse. This is no worse than a random metal-golem doing the disco dive with his molten face in your town. Now, time to get some ass moving." With her motto spoken shakily, she turned the key in the ignition and put the clutch in before peeling out of the gravelly roadside and onto the dirt path back to wherever the road was, guilt eating at her with each mile. Little did she know, her wallet had fallen out of it's pocket on her body with all her identification into the fire.

Lllllllllllllllllll

It had taken about a week and some change to get to the point where she was now in a dingy little studio room filled to the brim with electronics and computers that Darcy Lewis knew were likely stolen. The guy in front of her on the swivel chair that looked as if it had seen way better days, much like she had, was doing his magic for her new identity. She had paid him enough and he didn't ask questions. The internet cafe and some of the hacker forums she had visited had given him a good enough reference and she had made sure to send a hard to trace email to Jimmy Novak, at least that's what he was calling himself.

Jimmy had replied with a call to the go-phone she had bought a few hours beforehand when she got dropped off by Ralph, the trucker who had picked her up from Lexington, Kentucky, where a different driver, Oliver, had dropped her off from Grande Island in Nebraska, where she had been dropped off again by a greyhound she had slipped on board back in Tahoe, California, where she made the volkeswagon from McMurderbreath drive into the lake in the middle of the night.

"And your name is Max?" Darcy liked Maxium Ride and thought the idea behind the name would be nice, but Maxium would be too noticible and there was no way she was gonna take the name Maxine. She would rather take a name that was short and manly enough. Darcy had to be tough now. There was no more leaning on Jane Foster or her Culver university degree that she was hoping to attain to a doctorate.

"Well, it is now, pro-bono." There were a lot of things that were her now. One of them was her need to second check herself at all times, another was to look as poor as possible without looking homeless to blend into Brooklyn where the poor got poorer and the rich were the mafia. Honestly, Jimmy seemed a nice sort for a guy selling fake identification to the illegals like her.

"Got a last name?" The idea of a last name had yet to really come to her during her entire journey on the way to Jimmy's. The truckers that she had grabbed rides from asked for a last name and she gave a few different ones along with different first names, but this was for her new life. This was for the name of someone who wouldn't be looked twice at. Smith was too general and to her taste, overdone. The same thing with Jones. Looking at all of his monitors and towers, Darcy got the immediate feeling as if she was falling into the void. The radio that was on hit a tune that she knew by heart and had written essays to on her ipod. Rolling Stones and their 'Paint it Black' lulling Novak and her into an uneasy quiet.

"Yeah, make it Black." Jimmy's wild blue eyes under the rough amount of brown bed head he sported seemed to laugh in mirth at the play on the song before nodding. It only took a few minutes, but soon a new identification was dropped in her hand along with a social security card. Novak, with his grin, laughed at her astonishment. Oh, crime was very expedient it seems when she paid well.

"Aight. Lates, sugarcube." Pointing to the door, the hacker only smiled in goodbye to the silent woman who as soon as she stepped out of the door would no longer be Darcy Lewis.

LLLLLL

Wandering around the streets, dirty streets that only made the new Max Black cringe at the idea that her only pair of boots was getting splashed with muck she didn't know what to name. That was strange to not know what was exactly hitting her nice comfortable boots, but she had no doubts that she might puke if she knew all of the contents of what was hitting her.

"You look lost, sweetheart." A voice out of the din of people walking back and forth and the sounds of taxis being held stopped her. It was an elderly old man, black and smiling at her with all of his wrinkles and a merry twinkle in his eye that Darcy knew that was mischief in it's softer form.

"Am. I'm looking for some dive, handsome." She grinned over at him, cocking her head to the side. Her messy brunette hair wild without conditioner whipped back and forth due to the wind in the city as the older man tightened his hold on his coat, taking her in as if measuring her truly, seeing the dark secret of the man in California and her harried need for escape. "Williamsburg Diner. It good 'nough?"

"Oh? That hole in the wall?" A snort was her only reply. She had heard down at the laundromat where she had put her only other outfit in the wash that it was hiring due to new management. Something about the owner buying the diner from the Russian mob. Maybe he was a tough guy and honestly, Darcy needed some tough guys in her life if only to help her keep the illusion that she was still in full control of her destiny to stay away from the suits. "I know a hole in the wall when I see one. I was born in one and that was before it was called the Hole in the Wall."

"If all your humor is this great, I can't see what you're like when you take me out," For the first time since she had met Jimmy Novak and left California, Darcy let out a raucous laugh that became louder as she bent over holding her stomach. There was no reason why she should be laughing so hard but the elder smiled softly at her when she finally cleared her laughter away. He knew she was running. There was no other words for it, but for once, the once-college graduate wasn't scared and wasn't gonna head out back into the blue yonder.

"I see that you fell from heaven. What name you got, angel of mine?" He was sweet, she decided quickly. His hat covered his white hair from her view but Darcy wasn't going to let him think it bothered her any. Her hands brushed off her jeans, straightening up what she could before giving him her hand out.

"Max Black." The name sounded right for the first time since she chose it out of all the other possibilities, toying with the staccato sounds. She was a child tottering on uneasy legs, testing the waters with her hands out as she gave her name. Could she trust him? She didn't know yet. Did he seem trustworthy? He was better than some others she had seen. Was he a pimp? She had yet to really see.

"Earl, baby." He tipped his black leather cabbie hat towards her. Darcy smiled gently at the rather gentlemanly way he was treating her. It was strange for a city like this to have someone like Earl, but she could doubt that out of however millions of people lived in New York City and it's suburbs that there wouldn't be one at all. It was just nice that for once her stars were looking up.

"Earl, are you going to wine and dine me?" She grinned, teasing him. This new her was playful enough and knew to be cautious with who she gave her true feelings to. Earl seemed as if he could one day be one of those people. If she didn't know better, with his wide smile and congenial face, she had no doubt that he picked up stray kittens for a living and fed them with his table scraps as often as possible.

"Only if you want me to, otherwise I was gonna try my charm at some lovely new ladies I saw down the road." He winked before pointing down the road to a street corner where some rather tightly outfitted women were standing around, all with their own multitudes of color and make-up. Darcy snorted at Earl as he laughed at her face in return.

"Earl, you're a man after my own heart." It was the start of a beautiful friendship, she decided, when she took his proffered arm and smiled whole-heartedly at the older man, with his black leather cabbie hat and old button up shirt that looked as if it survived the seventy's.


End file.
